St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-10-29
nostril and lip, and makes you somewhat

nostril and lip, and makes you somewhat
like God Himself. He is omnipotence,
and we cannot copy that. He is indie
pendent of all the universe, and we can
not copy that. He is creative, and we
cannot copy that. He is omnipotent,
and we cannot copy that. But He for
gives with a broad sweep all faults, and
all ncglects, and all insults, and all
wrong doing, and in that we may copy
Him with mighty success. Go har-
ness that sublime action of your
soul to an autumnal sunset, the
hour when the gate of Heaven opens
to let the day pass into the eter-
mites and some Of the glories escape
this way through the brief opening. We
talk about the Italian sunsetS, and sunset
amid the Apprentices, and sunset amid the
Corderillas. But | will tell you how you
may see grander sunset than any mere
lover of nature ever beheld; that is by
tlinging into it all your hatreds, and ami
mOsites, and let the horses of fire tram
pie them, and the chariots of fire roll
over them, and the spearmen of fire
stab them, and the beach of fire consume
them, and the pillows of fire overwhelm
them. The sublimest thing God does is
the sunset. The sublimest thing you can
do is forgiveness. Along the glowing
banks of this coming eventide let the
divine and the human be concurrent.
Again: We should not let the sun go
down on our wrath because it is of little
Importance what the world says of you
or does to you when you have the att1u-
ent God of the sunset as your provlder
and defender. People talk as though it
were fixed spectacle of nature and
always the same. But no one ever saw
two sunsets alike, and if the world
has existed six thousand years there have
been about two million one hundred
and ninety thousand sunsets, each OF
them as distinct from all the other pic
lures in the gallery of the sky as Titian's
Last SUPPER Rubens' descent from
the Cross,' Raphael's TRANSPORTATION
and Michael Angeles Last Judgment
are distinct from each other If that
God of such infinite resources that He
can put on the wall of the sky each
night more than the Louvre, and the
Luxembourg, and the Vatican, and the
Dresden and Venetian galleries all in
one, is my God and your Cod
our Provider and Protector-what is
the use of our worrying about any
human antagonism? If we are mis-
interpreted, the God of the many
colored sunset can put the right color
on our action. If He can afford to hang
such masterpieces over the outside wall
of Heaven and have them obliterated
in an hour, He must be very rich in re-
sources and can put us through in safety.
If all the garniture of the western
heavens at eventide is but the upholstery
of one of the windows of our future
home, what small business for US to be
chasing enemies Let not the Sabbath
sun 60 down upon your wrath.
Mohammed said: The sword is the key
of Heaven and hell, drop of blood shed
is better than fasting, and wounds in the
Day Of Judgment respondent as yermil-
lion, and odoriferous as musk" But,
my hearers, in the Last Day we will find
just the opposite of that to be true, and
that the sword never unlocks Heaven,
and that he who heals wounds is greater
than He who makes them, and that on
the same ring are two keys: Gods for
giveness of us and our forgiveness of
enemies, and these two keys unlock
Paradise
And now I wish for all of you beau
tiful sunset in your earthly existence.
With some of you it has been long day
of trouble, and with others of YOU it
will be far from calm. When the sun
rose at six o'clock it was the morning of
youth, and fair day was prophe-
sled, but by the time the noon
day of mid-life had come and the
clock of your earthly existence
had struck twelve, cloud racks gathered
and tempest beloved in the track of
tempest. But as the evening of old age
| pray God the skies may
brighten and the clouds be piled up into
pillars as of celestial temples to which
you go, or move as with mounted cohorts
come to take you home And as you sink
out of sight below the horizon may there
De a radiance of Christian example lin |
yering long after you are gone, and |
IN the heavens be written in let |
ers of sapphire, and on the waters
n letters of opal. and on the hills in let
ers of emerald: Thy sun shall no
more go down, neither shall thy moon |
withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be
hine everlasting light and the days of |
by mourning shall be ended So shall |
he sunset of earth become the sunrise of I
heaven.